no pages found: whimsical errors with a binary driver working well on other cups systems

Helge Blischke h.blischke at acm.org
Sat Jul 30 06:04:10 PDT 2011


Elmar Stellnberger wrote:

>> > Elmar Stellnberger wrote:
>> >
>> > >> Elmar Stellnberger wrote:
>> > >>
>> > >> >   Printing test pages always breaks with the error 'no pages
>> > >> >   found'. The same driver from solutions.brother.com/linux for the
>> > >> >   mfc-9840cdw (1.0.3-1.i386) works well on another machine using
>> > >> >   the same Linux version (2.6.34.7-0.7-desktop) and cups release
>> > >> >   (cups-1.4.6-70.1, openSUSE 11.3) though on an i686 platform
>> > >> >   rather than on an x86_64 as desired. I also remember the brother
>> > >> >   drivers having worked for x86_64 on a previous installation
>> > >> >   given that the i586 support libraries are correctly installed
>> > >> >   which I have verified with ldd/rpm. However also the cups
>> > >> >   installation on the x86_64 machine seems to be correct since the
>> > >> >   generic postcript printer driver will make my mfc-9840cdw print
>> > >> >   well though in unsatisfyingly low quality using only black and
>> > >> >   white instead of color. PDF-file printing does also work well.
>> > >> >
>> > >> >   Can anyone help? I have raised the debug level and analysed the
>> > >> >   logs but didn`t find any error message. That seems to be the
>> > >> >   very cryptical thing about the 'no pages found' fallacy with
>> > >> >   cups.
>> > >> >
>> > >> > Many Thanks and Appreciation for Your Response,
>> > >> > Elmar Stellnberger
>> > >>
>> > >> Please post (an URL to) a sample file and the portion of the
>> > >> error_log containing the messages related to the sample job for
>> > >> further examination.
>> > >>
>> > >> Helge
>> > >>
>> > >
>> > >   I have now uploaded the collected debug & logfiles at
>> > >   http://elstel.binhoster.com/postedfiles/brother_mfc-9840cdw_cups/.
>> >
>> > I suspect from looking into your files that the cause is the fact that
>> > the needed fonts could not be embedded. The error_log shows:
>> >
>> > [Job 39] Unable to open font file "/usr/share/cups/fonts/Monospace" -
>> > [No such file or directory
>> >
>> > etc. for all the fonts needed for the testpage. As these fonts, I
>> > suppose, are not installed in the printer's ROM, the missing fonts
>> > clearly lead to a PostScript error. This seems to be backed by the
>> > message
>> >
>> > [Job 39] Error: error occurred at print phase !!
>> >
>> > wich comes, as I can see, from the Brother filter.
>> >
>> > So look for the Monospace font family and install it properly.
>> >
>> > Helge
>> >
>>
>>   The Monospace fonts are installed, the given error messages have gone,
>>   but however the 'No pages found' error still persists perhaps now
>>   occurring a little bit later. Again I have posted all the new log files
>>   at http://elstel.org/postedfiles/brother_mfc_9840cdw_cups/ but however
>>   could not find a possible cause of this error. The given jobs will have
>>   started at 10:25:31 and finished at 10:25:33 so that the only log file
>>   containing datas about the failed test-page-printout should be
>>   error_log.
>>
>> Good Thanks for Your Support,
>> Elmar
>>
> 
>   Helge, can you help me? Again I have looked at the logfiles and also
>   asked at irc:##cups but could neithertimes find the error.
>   Post-installing the Monospace fonts could have been a good hint either
>   but actually did not resolve the 'no pages found' error as the same
>   problem had already existed when printing the test page with the generic
>   postscript printer which was known to work.
> 
> Best Recommendations,
> Elmar

>From your error_log samples I see that the printer's PPD contains a 
*cupsFilter statement. The message "Error: error occurred at print phase !!" 
is obviously generated by the proprietary brother filter - nowhere in the 
cups 1.4.6 sources can this message be found.

Due to the Brother web site, this printer speaks PostScript (Brother claims 
that their BR-Script 3 is comaptible to PostScript 3). Thus I'd suggest as a 
first approach to turn the *cupsFilter line in the printer's PPD into a 
comment (by changing "*cupsFilter" to "*%cupsFilter") and redo the test 
print.

Helge





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